Travel • Living • Design
Brussels was cleaner than we remembered — the soot that had darkened Sainte-Catherine on our first visit was gone, the church bright now where it had been dull. A single night in the capital, this time without day trips or rail connections outward. The city concentrated itself accordingly.
The Space Needle was never meant to last. Built in 110 days for the 1962 World's Fair — a fair whose theme was Century 21, meaning…
Continue reading → The Space Needle: What Was Gained, What Was Lost
Florence concentrates. Where Rome sprawls and Paris unfolds in layers, Florence compresses everything into a walkable density that rewards patience and punishes the itinerary that tries to see it all. Two nights was enough to understand why the city earns its reputation — and to begin to see past it.
The train out of Barcelona had been canceled. That single fact rerouted an entire day — and turned Geneva, always planned as an overnight transit stop, into something we had to earn. What one evening in a city of precision and quiet elegance offers, possibly more than you'd expect.
We arrived at night, exhausted after a long day of travel. The metro from the airport let us out at Colón, where we surfaced into…
Continue reading → Valencia Doesn’t Announce Itself. It Reveals Itself.
On a Thursday morning we stopped at Boulangerie Michel on a quiet street in Den Haag, sat down with croissants and café at the owner's…
The flat was on the Prinsengracht, third floor, its windows facing directly out over the canal. We arrived midday Friday, pulled the suitcases up the…
Continue reading → Amsterdam: Designed for What It Couldn’t Stop
As I poked between the iron gate, I heard a voice warn: "No photos." I looked up to see a gentleman emerge from the estate's…
Continue reading → London: Kensington and the Architecture of Privilege